The Best Noughties Album Ever

11:53a.m., Wed 23 Dec 2009

There's this weird phenom of collective memory whereby whole decades of music is, over time, condensed down into an ever decreasing pool of representative tunes.

If you wander down your local record shop and have a browse through the "best of the sixties" compilations for example, they all contain roughly the same tracks. If you sit down and try and name the iconic tunes of the sixties, you'll probably name a similar list to anybody else. The Beatles, The Troggs, Hendrix, The Stones, The Supremes, Elvis, The Byrds... The same can be said for the 70s, 80s and 90s. Sometimes tunes transcend their actual success at the time and becoe more important beacons of their time than those records that out performed them at the time. Would anyone include "Everything I Do (I Do It For You)" in their list of iconic 80s songs?

Anyway.... I thought I'd have a go at compiling a "Super Hits Of The Noughties" album that might be released ten years from now.

My brief is this:

It's a double CD

Yes, yes, yes...this doesn't make sense since nobody will be buying CDs ten years from now. It's more a case of limiting the number of tracks and to offer a comparison with the compilations that we're used to

It's meant to embody the decade

This means that the acts I've chosen are quintissentially noughties acts. There's been some acts that have been prominent and important in the last ten years without being quintissentially noughtie. U2, Radiohead & R.E.M. - all big acts, but established in the 80s/90s. And they're still pedalling the same old stuff. Some acts may have re-invented themselves to such a degree and had such a cultural impact that they demand inclusion however.

The measure is 'cultural significance'

Yes, this is about pop music. But some pop music is so damned disposable that it barely impacts on the wider cultural landscape. I've not included Gareth Gates, David Sneddon or any of that Pop Idol, Pop Stars, X Factor, Fame Academy rubbish because, although it has made a huge impact, it's arguably not the music or the records that made the impact in the end. Also, that stuf is largely covers anyways...

I did initially obsess over my tracklisting in attempt to mkae my album a cohesive listen in the same way that the "Now That's What I Call Music" albums do. But, in the end, it's a more intersting list when presented chronologically.

It might seem like a front-heavy list - there's only one track from 2009 for example, but it might be that the early year have benefited from time and it might be that the acts and artists that have made an impact this year have yet to make their biggest impact. The acts that feature in the early years were established acts at the time, but these hits embody those years for me.

I've had to include some tracks as a nod to wider phenoms. Nelly Furtado fr'instance is a nod to the slew of female singer-songwriters that clogged up the charts in the wake of Norah Jones. And Sugababes' "Freak Like Me" is a nod to the bootleg movement of 2001/02.